


I Hold With Those Who Favor Fire

by autumnstwilight (sewohayami)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Character Study, Gen, One Shot, World of Ruin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:54:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27551872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sewohayami/pseuds/autumnstwilight
Summary: Gentiana encounters a wounded Ignis outside Lestallum. Written for Lost in Wars zine.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33
Collections: Lost in Wars - A FFXV World of Ruin Zine





	I Hold With Those Who Favor Fire

**Author's Note:**

> I thought these two characters had a potentially interesting contrast between them, and wanted to try writing from Gentiana's somewhat alien perspective (which ended up giving me a lot of trouble).
> 
> Title from Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice".
> 
> _Some say the world will end in fire,  
>  Some say in ice.  
> From what I’ve tasted of desire  
> I hold with those who favor fire.  
> But if it had to perish twice,  
> I think I know enough of hate  
> To say that for destruction ice  
> Is also great  
> And would suffice._

It is not her own coldness that fills the night. Not the bright chill of the winter wind nor the crispness of fresh snow underfoot, but the hollow black rot of absence, and so it displeases her. Her footsteps through the roiling dust are like fingertips taking a temperature and finding the body corpse-stiff. The scourge is bitter on her tongue and her breath each moment she spends here.

Here at the still point of the turning world, time has carved away half of the wait appointed. The midnight moon is just past full, and must wane again before the darkest hour. Frost blossoms at her feet, flowers from the dead land.

It has been many years since she first began to live among the humans. At first, she served as a companion and guide for the young Oracle, now she passes her time in the city as another set of hands, stirring the soup pot and tending to the sick, tasks that pass unnoticed, unrecognized. In the hours when the humans sleep, she slips the gates and wanders, surveying what is left of the world. She does not hunt the daemons, but when the Light within her draws their attention, she dispatches them with a freezing gale.

He is not far from the city gates when she finds him, the heat of his blood bright in the frosted dust, and the wheezing of his breath rising like smoke from a candle flame. Life burns within him yet. She has no message to speak, and so she watches. Eventually, he lets out a wet cough, and rolls onto his back.

“All has its hour, but the hour of the Swordsworn is yet to come.” It is, to her, an observation, as one might comment on the weather. The thread of fate on which his life is suspended has not yet reached its end.

“It will take more than that to finish me,” he asserts, pushing himself into a sitting position. “You should know.”

He summons a cane into his hand and prises himself from the ground, leaning on it heavily as he makes his way toward the gates. Draped over one shoulder, he carries a bundle neatly wrapped in cloth, treated with more caution than any part of his own body. She does not assist, but trails behind.

It is always so. She is not permitted to alter the events that have been preordained. The life of the Star rests on the point of a needle, as does the truce between the remaining Gods. Between the wrath of Leviathan and the justice of Ramuh, between Bahamut’s pragmatism and her own compassion. Woe to him who tilts the balance.

And thus, her role is observer and Messenger. Her borrowed body has lingered here, watching the Oracle grow into a dauntless young woman, then facing the destiny asked of her. Gentiana shed tears for her, as promised. It was to cry for Lunafreya that she took this human form.

“You know,” he says eventually, “I once found your following us reassuring.”

“Is it no longer so?” she asks.

Too distant for human senses, the daemons hiss in the wasteland and under the earth that his blood drips over and soaks into. They dare not rise while she is here. She is not permitted to tilt the balance. But every now and then, she places a fingertip beneath the scales.

“Back then, I thought that he had your favor. That you would protect him.”

She tilts her head at this seeming accusation. 

“Bearing the blessing of the divine, the King lives yet. The High Messenger watches as he walks the path appointed.”

The man turns away from her, a wordless noise escapes him. When he speaks, his voice is rough and thickened by something other than blood.

“You did not protect the Oracle in Altissia. And when her murderer turned his blade toward the King— there was not a God in sight. What I did may have been reckless, but I never abandoned him. Can you say the same?”

“It is not for the Messenger to interfere with the path set for the King. The Swordsworn understands this now. He too knows what lies ahead, and spoke of it not.”

His head jerks back toward her, outrage on his features, and for a moment, he appears to be searching for words.

“With all due respect, our circumstances are hardly comparable. I did not decide the way of things, merely failed to change them.”

“Every action brings about change,” she tells him. “Such acts of loyalty echo in the halls of eternity.”

“Forgive me, but I’m rather more concerned with the present.” He sniffs, then wipes a trail of blood from his nose. “And I’m not ready to face eternity yet. Nor send anyone else in my stead.”

“The fate of our Star now rests upon the King. Bearing the Light, he will return prepared. Does the Swordsworn intend to oppose him?” She asks this pleasantly, but there is a taste of frost on her tongue. Betrayal displeases her.

“No! I— I will follow him to the gates of hell, if I must. But only after all other roads have been exhausted.”

It should gladden her, but her heart fills with sorrow. She recalls the elder brother standing before her, bearing the crest of his enemies, the same urgency in his voice as he insisted there must be another way, and he would find it, even if he had to tear the world apart. She had smiled sadly then, too.

Humans claimed forever so easily in their vows and poems, like snowflakes that did not know of spring. Yet even if she could freeze them in the moment, she would not. Eternity was not for them.

Long ago, they had turned against her love, driving him from his throne and leading to his downfall. But who betrayed whom? Was it Ifrit who was the first to turn cruel, demand too much, punish too harshly? Her mate, or her beloved humans— she had turned a blind eye to the flaws of both.

And would Ifrit have punished the humans knowing that his actions would lead to the poisoning of the world, threatening the Crystal itself? It seemed impossible, he had been created to defend it. And yet as king, he was as uncompromising and unstoppable as the flow of magma down a mountainside. Perhaps this was what he had willed.

Her unease then, is with the will of the Gods. It pains her most, as she has walked among the humans, come to value even lives that vanish like frost in the morning sun. None of them take joy in this, but she alone comprehends the weight of each loss.

The children of the Crystal, cruel and kind, petty and generous, short-lived and spanning across ages. Her humans. She could not look at them and feel despondent. They gathered and huddled in their settlements like campfires reduced to embers, nestling for a rebirth.

Her companion walks with a furious stride and says nothing more until they arrive at the gates, and she bows to him in preparation to leave. It is then that he turns to her, with the hesitance of a child and asks, simply.

“How long?”

She smiles a little, although he cannot see it.

“Which answer is sought? That he is soon to return, and free the world from its peril? Or that time remains, so that the Swordsworn may prepare, mind and body?”

The expression on his lips is thin and bitter, twisting around the answer he already knows.

“Too long. And not long enough.”

He lets out a sigh that dissolves in the emptiness around them.

“Tell him then. If you can do nothing else for me, then deliver this message. We are waiting. Always.”

He passes through the gates and they close with a clang of metal, something harsh and man-made. The noise displeases her, but no more than the faint howls of what lies in the wastelands. At least the creaks and clattering of mankind speak of hope. Someday they will build towers and ring bells once again.

It is then that she turns away from the city. Her gaze turns to the waning moon, suspended above the Umbral Isle and trickling away like sand in the upper half of an hourglass, cliffs reaching up like spread wings to catch it. Below, the King sleeps, and the land with him. Devoured by darkness deep enough to swallow the Light of the Gods. 

But all is not lost. The cycles of the ocean still pulse, sending the sea breeze, the heat of the earth still pushes upward, and the rain still falls to quench its thirst. She senses her kin in the stirring air, refusing to let Eos perish. Within her hand she cups snowflakes, and lets the breeze snatch them from the clifftops, illuminated by the glow of the meteorshards below. For a moment, the endless night has stars.


End file.
